Testimonies – Soviet Forced Labour

Antoni talks about the dog that was his companion while at the camp – a stray Siberian Husky that may have been left behind by those who had preceded them …

Bernarda describes how the Russian people who preceded them to the camp, and were still stuck there, were in the same situation as they were – sometimes their conditions were …

Dioniza describes the work that the adults and the children did at the camp.

This is the life story of Ludwik Cytera as discovered and written up by his grandson Christopher Cytera.

Describing how he had to work in the fields at age 6 1/2 !!

Describing how their mother would sell valuables that she had brought from Poland, and how this helped them survive and leave the USSR.

Describing how she saved a girl named Wanda from drowning in the river in Siberia.

Eugenia describes how she kept wanting to save part of her bread so that she could bring it to her starving mother, but she was so hungry herself that she …

Describing how her mother went to the town to sell their belongings, and was arrested and jailed on her return.

Describing the infestations of bedbugs

Describing the strange and limited contents of the camp store.

Describing how people would share anything but food, and when someone did share their food, it was a mark of extreme courage.

Describing how he was assigned to work with a sleigh and a horse called Czudak, and also describing the woman who was in charge of the stable.

Describing how the commandant of the camp told him he could get a goat after 5 years of hard work.

Describing how they would start fires in the forest in order to get triple bread rations.

Describing the living conditions in the Gulag, and how they got worse after the Germans attacked the Russians.

Describing his father’s arrest, deportation to Murmansk, and his eventual death there.

Describing how her sister fell in the river, then was forced to work in wet clothing, developed pneumonia and died a week later.

Describing how she helped her 3 sisters in the cotton fields, in order to earn more soup and bread.

Jozefa describes conditions in the Gulag and the family members who died there.

Jozefa explains how she only learned in recent years about how her father died – he was one of the deportees that was on the ship that was sunk by …